Today I want t share with you a new movement underway led by Mr. Ronald Hummons. You may have read his book entitled Diamond, an autobiography about his own childhood trauma.
I first learned of Ronald’s work while participating in the Ohio Black Expo last week. He has initiated a movement for social policy change that we all could afford to jump on board and support. Briefly outlined below is its name and mission. But let me give you some cultural context. In South Africa the common greeting used is Sawubona ,translated it means, “I see the divinity in you.” The next question asked after that greeting is “how are the children”. Given the current public health crises of systemic racism and COVID 19 and their impact on every aspect of our lives, our children are not doing well. They are being traumatized, just as many of their parents were traumatized, and in some instances their parents’ parents. It is time to declare a state of emergency on childhood trauma to save our children and their families. Much of the violence we see in our cities today is a manifestation of untreated childhood trauma. It is time to demand that punishment of traumatized children be stopped and culturally appropriate therapeutic, healing interventions be provided. The statements below are from State of Emergency on Childhood Trauma literature.
State of Emergency on Childhood Trauma
Our mission is to serve as a resource to increase early diagnosis, treatment options, and sustainable care to Black and Brown children experiencing childhood trauma.
Solution
Imagine the possibilities of our children when their trauma is recognized and treated, rather than misdiagnosed and punished.
1. Studies point to a strong link between the physical, sexual, or psychological maltreatment of children and the development of psychiatric problems.
2. A child’s adaptive or protective mechanisms as a result of trauma will become counterproductive or self-defeating in the adult.
3. Childhood abuse has arrested psychosocial development, leaving a “wounded child” within the adult.
4. Early maltreatment, even exclusively psychological abuse, has enduring negative effects on brain development. Researchers see specific kinds of brain abnormalities in psychiatric patients who were abused as children.
5. Physical, sexual, and psychological trauma in childhood may lead to psychiatric difficulties that show up in childhood, adolescence, or adulthood. The victim’s anger, shame, and despair can be directed inward to spawn symptoms such as depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and post-traumatic stress, or directed outward as aggression, impulsiveness, delinquency, hyperactivity, and substance abuse
6. Childhood trauma may fuel a range of persistent psychiatric disorders. One is somatoform disorder (also known as psychosomatic disorder), in which patients experience physical complaints with no discernible medical cause.
7. More complex, difficult-to-treat disorders strongly associated with childhood abuse are borderline personality disorder and dissociative identity disorder. Someone with borderline personality disorder characteristically sees others in black-and-white terms, first putting them on a pedestal, then vilifying them after some perceived slight or betrayal.
8. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) afflicts some people who have undergone a traumatic event involving serious injury or a threat to life or limb. Initially identified in combat veterans, PTSD seems to result as well from natural disasters, child abuse, and other devastating experiences. People with PTSD keep re-experiencing the traumatic event in waking life or in dreams, and they actively avoid situations that might bring back memories of the trauma. They may also suffer a general numbing of their responsiveness, show diminished interest in significant activities, restrict the range of their emotions, or have feelings of detachment or estrangement from others. Finally, they may also experience increased arousal (such as difficulty falling or staying asleep), irritability or outbursts of anger, difficulty concentrating, hyper vigilance, and an exaggerated startle response.
9. Ignoring childhood trauma will increase violence between police and victims.
10. Ignoring childhood trauma will cause a rise in suicide attempts
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